


Second Chance

by dragonflybeach



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Fix-It, I recognize that Marvel has made a decision, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), but given that it's a stupid ass decision I have elected to fix it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 23:03:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18647920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonflybeach/pseuds/dragonflybeach
Summary: During Steve's mission in Endgame, a talk with a wise friend keeps him from making a mistake.





	Second Chance

Vormir was just as Clint described it - dark, mostly barren, an uneven terrain scattered with ponds.

The one thing he didn't find was Natasha's body at the bottom of a cliff that had two columns on top.

There was no question he was in the right place. Clint had described the spot so perfectly, and there wasn't anything else remotely close within even his enhanced visual distance.

He hoped that whoever the man was that Clint and Natasha had met, he had given Natasha a proper burial. Somehow, he didn't believe that had been the case.

Standing at the top of the rock face, he paused for several long moments before he carefully removed the Soul Stone from the case with the glove Bruce had designed and dropped it off the precipice.

"Goodbye, Natasha." He whispered.

"Hey Steve," came a voice from behind him.

He turned and there she was, except she ... wasn't. It was Natasha, but not his Natasha.

It was a spectral woman with red hair, but she floated off the ground and he could see through her, like a ghost in one of those books Bucky would bring home, back when they both thought ghosts and monsters and aliens were the scariest things they could imagine.

"Nat." He said, not sure whether it was or not.

"You brought the stone back. I guess that means we won." She smiled sadly.

"Yeah." Steve nodded. "Yeah. It worked. We got back everyone we had lost in the snap. Not Vision, because he was before, but everyone who turned to dust is back. Thanos is dead."

"Did we lose anyone in the battle?" She asked.

"Tony." Steve choked on the name, his voice cracking and tears threatening to fall. "We lost ... we lost Tony. He sacrificed himself to defeat Thanos."

She frowned, and her mouth moved a few times before she actually spoke. "I'm sorry. How are Pepper and Morgan and Rhodey?"

"About like you'd expect." Steve hunched his shoulders and shuffled his feet. "Pepper and Rhodey are trying to be strong for Morgan. Pepper doesn't think Morgan really understands that Tony is never coming back."

"Yeah." Natasha agreed. "It's tough for a kid." She tossed her head. "But you're okay, right? You've got Bucky and Sam back?"

"Yeah, and everyone else." He nodded. "How about you? Are you coming back with me, or are you a ghost, or ... what, exactly?"

"I'm now the Stonekeeper." She shrugged. "I'll watch over the stone and try to warn away anyone who comes looking for it."

"So you're going to be stuck here forever?" Steve asked, wincing.

"If and when someone else becomes the Stonekeeper, I'll spend the rest of eternity in the Soul Realm." She shrugged. "It's not bad. It's peaceful."

"Natasha." He shook his head.

"But what about you?" She asked, reaching out to punch his shoulder, but her hand passed through him. "What are you going to do after you return the stones? You got another set of "Rappin' with Cap" videos coming up? Are you going to finally take a vacation?" She grinned teasingly.

"I don't think I'm going back, Nat." He said, not meeting her eyes. "I think I may stay in 1945."

Her expression became serious, and he could see thoughts flurrying behind her eyes. "I understand you wanting to get Barnes away from Hydra, but do you really think the two of you should stay in the 40s? Society wasn't exactly tolerant back then. Or is that why you want to stay? Are you hoping to change society's opinions earlier?"

He frowned. "What? I'm talking about going home with Peggy after the war."

"Peggy?" Now Natasha frowned.

"She was the love of my life, Nat." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking past her across the canyon. "Tony really found himself when he settled down and married Pepper. I want to try to find that for myself."

"Okay." She drew the word out. "But why are you sure Peggy is the one?"

"She's the only one who's ever seen me for _me_." He shoved his hand through his hair. "She saw who I could be when I was still a skinny little runt. Tone ... " He paused and took a deep breath. "Tony and I ... weren't able to get the Tesseract in 2012. We ended up having to hop back to 1970 to steal both the Tesseract and more Pym Particles from Camp Lehigh. She had a picture of me Before on her desk."

"And when you woke up after 70 years in the ice, she told you that she had grieved you and moved on." Natasha pointed out. "She married someone else, whom she loved, had children, and had a good life. She made a different choice, Steve. Are you really going to take that away from her?"

"She made that choice because I wasn't there." He argued. "We don't know what choice she would have made if I had been."

She nodded and pursed her lips. "Let's say you're right there, and you have as much chance as her future husband. So let's look at it from another angle. When did you promise Peggy that you were with her until the end of the line?"

He frowned and actually looked at her, but didn't answer.

"Peggy isn't the one who worked two jobs before the war to pay for your medical bills, and arranged to have his Army pay sent home so you were taken care of when he got drafted." She said. "Peggy was still alive and talking to you when you crashed a plane that had a parachute on it and laid down and waited to die. I saw the S.H.I.E.L.D. files. I know you lied about there not being a parachute left. Peggy didn't break seventy years of Hydra programming for you. Peggy wasn't the person you became an international fugitive over. You never put an entire nation in danger by asking a king to grant asylum to Peggy. You didn't constantly press Shuri to fix Peggy. You didn't drop everything to be there when Peggy woke up. Peggy wasn't the one you grieved after The Decimation to the point Rhodey and I actually expected you to kill yourself again. When you’re bored, sometimes you sketch Peggy, sometimes you sketch one of the other Avengers, but you have notebooks full of Barnes."

"Nat." He sighed. "Bucky ... it's not like that."

"Steve." She shook her head. "You said that when you had no one else, you had Bucky. You've got him back. Don't throw that away. You told me yourself how hard it was to find someone with shared life experiences."

"Bucky doesn't feel that way about me." Steve protested. "He broke his programming, but he ran away and stayed gone for two years! I wouldn't have found him then if not for the U.N. bombing! Then he stayed in Wakanda on a freaking goat farm! He could have come with me! He's never wanted anything like that with me." He shoved his hand through his hair again. "I told Buck that I wasn't coming back. I told him I was going back to stay and grow old with Peggy. He asked me if I was sure, and when I said yes, he wished me luck and told me that he would miss me. He didn't try to stop me."

"You told him because you wanted him to stop you." Nat narrowed her eyes. "You wanted him to ask you to come back."

"He didn't." Steve repeated.

"Steve, I hate to tell you this, but you and Tony aren't the only ones who dealt with trauma." She sighed. "Barnes was tortured and brainwashed for over seventy years. You've never dealt with anything like that. He had all kinds of thoughts and memories and ideas and feelings in his head, but he didn't know which ones were real or not. He ran away so that he could try to sort himself out. Then once he had a handle on what he had done that was real, he had to deal with that on his own. You don't know everything about that. I gave you his file from Hydra, but I never showed you his SSR file. Those missions they pulled him away from the Commandos for? They were things that would give anyone nightmares. At least I had S.H.I.E.L.D. psychiatrists and psychologists to help me come to terms with my past. Barnes had to do that on his own until he got to Wakanda. He didn't feel like he deserved you. And as far as not coming with you, Steve, he was _The Winter Soldier_. Everyone in the world was looking for him not long ago. You don't think he was terrified that he would be recognized and put you in danger if he had gone with you? After all the things he had done to protect you, do you really think he would take chances with your safety?"

Steve nodded. "You're probably right about that."

"I know I am." She smirked confidently. "I read people better than anyone you know." Her smile faded and she tried to take his hand but couldn't. "Steve, I've never seen you as happy as when you're with Barnes, not even when Peggy had good days and the two of you talked about old times. It's not the past with her that really makes you happy. It's the present with him. You light up the moment you see him, and he changes completely when you walk in the room. You're both alive and healthy. You've got the kind of second chance millions of people would sell their souls for. Don't throw it away longing for the past. Go out and make your future."

"Nat, he didn't ask me to come back." Steve told her, this time sounding sad.

"He thinks this is what you want, a life with Peggy, the picket fence and kids and a dog." She shook her head. "What kind of best friend would he be if he didn't want you to be happy? I told you, you may have had cared about Peggy, but Barnes is the love of your life. Even more so, you're his. Wouldn't his life have been a lot easier if he had left you to fend for yourself before the war? Or if he had taken the Purple Heart discharge and gone home after Azzano? He couldn't walk away from you any more than you've ever been able to walk away from him. But think about this: you're all he's got in the 21st century. He might have a few friends in Wakanda, but nothing like the relationships you have with the other Avengers. Are you really just going to leave him to fend for himself? What kind of friend are you?"

"What if you're wrong?" He put his hands on his hips. "What if Bucky doesn't feel that way about me?"

She shrugged. "You get Bruce and Scott to send you back to the 1940s or wherever else you want to go. You literally have nothing to lose."

He looked down at the case in his hand. "I still have two more stones to return. I'll think about it."

"Do that." She said. "But do one thing for me, please."

"Of course." He looked concerned.

"When you get back, go see Clint." She asked. "Tell him that I'm okay, and I'm at peace. Tell him to let me go and make his future too."

"I'll bring him here." Steve offered. "We'll come back to see you."

She shook her head sadly. "No. What did we just talk about, letting go of the past and making your future? I'm part of the past now, Steve. Let me go too."

"I'll miss you, Nat." He said softly.

"Smile when you do." She smiled at him and faded away.

Steve activated the wrist band to move onto his next two destinations. An hour later, as far as he reckoned time passed, he found himself back at the portal.

"Steve?" Bucky frowned in confusion. "I thought you weren't ... "

Bruce and Sam both whirled to look at Bucky.

"He wasn't what?" Sam demanded.

Steve dropped the bag containing the shield, walked off the platform straight to Buck, cupped both of his hands around Bucky's face, and kissed him on the mouth.

After a moment of shock, Buck kissed back, his arms coming up around Steve's shoulders.

When they finally broke apart, Steve slipped his arms around Buck's waist and leaned their foreheads together.

"It's about damn time!" Sam shouted.

Buck took a step back and looked at Steve in confusion. "I thought you were going to stay in the 40s with Peggy."

Steve smiled wryly. "I said I wanted to have my happily ever after with the love of my life. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew that wasn't Peggy."

Bucky smiled, happier than Steve had seen him since long before the war, and Steve knew wouldn’t trade that smile for a million years with Peggy.


End file.
